Learn Hardcore Norwegian: På lekeplassen har barna en sandkasse og en lang sklie. - At the playground the children have a sandbox and a long slide.

Norwegian has verb‑second word order (V2) in main clauses.
That means the finite verb (here: har) must usually be the second element in the sentence, no matter what comes first.

Subject-first version: Barna har en sandkasse og en lang sklie på lekeplassen.
- 1st element: Barna
- 2nd element: har (verb)
With a phrase moved to the front: På lekeplassen har barna en sandkasse og en lang sklie.
- 1st element: På lekeplassen (a prepositional phrase)
- 2nd element: har (verb)
- 3rd element: barna (subject)

So the sentence must put har in second position after På lekeplassen to follow the V2 rule.

Why is it på lekeplassen and not i lekeplassen or ved lekeplassen?

The preposition på often corresponds to English on/at, and it’s the standard choice for “at the playground”:

på lekeplassen – at the playground
på skolen – at school
på jobben – at work

i lekeplassen would literally mean inside the playground (as a physical container), which sounds wrong.
ved lekeplassen means near/by the playground, not actually at it.

So på lekeplassen is the natural idiomatic way to say at the playground.

What is the difference between lekeplass, en lekeplass, and lekeplassen?

Norwegian marks definiteness with an ending on the noun:

lekeplass – playground (bare noun, used in compounds or as a dictionary form)
en lekeplass – a playground (indefinite singular)
lekeplassen – the playground (definite singular: lekeplass + en)

In the sentence we have på lekeplassen = at the playground, referring to a specific, known playground.
If you said på en lekeplass, it would be at a playground, some playground, not necessarily a specific one already known in the context.

Why is it barna and not something like barnene or barner?

Barn (child) is an irregular noun in Norwegian:

Singular: et barn – a child
Plural indefinite: barn – children
Plural definite: barna – the children

So barna already includes the definite article the.
Forms like barnene or barner are not correct standard forms for this noun.

In the sentence, barna means the children, presumably children already known from context.

Why does the sentence use har barna (“the children have”) instead of something like det er (“there is”)?

Norwegian distinguishes between:

har = have, expressing possession or that something belongs to someone
det er / det finnes = there is/there are, expressing existence

På lekeplassen har barna en sandkasse og en lang sklie specifically says the children have these things available to them on the playground.

You could also say:

På lekeplassen er det en sandkasse og en lang sklie.
= At the playground there is a sandbox and a long slide.

This focuses more on what exists at the playground in general, not directly on what the children “have”.

Could the word order be Barna har en sandkasse og en lang sklie på lekeplassen? Is that also correct?

Yes, that sentence is also correct:

Barna har en sandkasse og en lang sklie på lekeplassen.

Both versions are fine:

På lekeplassen har barna en sandkasse og en lang sklie.
– Emphasis on location first (“At the playground...”).
Barna har en sandkasse og en lang sklie på lekeplassen.
– Emphasis on the children first (“The children have...”).

The basic information is the same; it’s mostly a difference in what you present as the starting point of the sentence.

Why is it en sandkasse og en lang sklie? Do I really need en before both nouns?

In Norwegian, you normally repeat the article with each separate noun:

en sandkasse og en lang sklie – a sandbox and a long slide
en gutt og ei jente – a boy and a girl
et bord og et stol (better: en stol) – a table and a chair

If you drop the second article (en sandkasse og lang sklie), it sounds ungrammatical or at least very unnatural in standard Norwegian in this context.

You only omit repetition if the two nouns form a very tight conceptual unit, like:

en kniv og gaffel – a knife and fork (often treated as a pair)

Here, sandkasse and sklie are just two separate things, so en is repeated.

Why is it en lang sklie and not something like en sklie lang? How do adjectives work here?

In Norwegian, descriptive adjectives normally come before the noun:

en lang sklie – a long slide
et stort hus – a big house
ei fin bok – a nice book

In the indefinite singular with common gender, the adjective takes its basic form (usually the one without endings):

en lang sklie
en fin lekeplass

In the definite or plural, the adjective usually ends in -e, and you often add a separate definite article:

den lange sklien / sklia – the long slide
de lange skliene / skliene – the long slides
den fine lekeplassen – the nice playground

So en sklie lang would be wrong word order for a normal descriptive phrase.

Why is it en sandkasse and en lang sklie and not ei sandkasse or ei sklie?

Bokmål has one common gender (en) and one neuter gender (et). There is also a feminine article ei, but it is optional in Bokmål:

sandkasse and sklie are historically feminine nouns.
So you may see:
- ei sandkasse – sandkassa
- ei sklie – sklia

However, in modern Bokmål many people use en for most common-gender nouns, even if they are historically feminine:

en sandkasse – sandkassen
en sklie – sklien

Both en sandkasse / ei sandkasse and en sklie / ei sklie are grammatically correct in Bokmål.
The sentence simply chooses the very common pattern with en.

How do you pronounce lekeplassen, sandkasse, and sklie?

Approximate pronunciations (standard Eastern Norwegian, rough English approximations):

lekeplassen – [LEH-keh-plass-en]
- leke: LEH-keh (first syllable stressed)
- plassen: PLASS-en
sandkasse – [SAHND-kass-eh]
- sand: like English “sand” but with a shorter a
- kasse: KASS-eh
sklie – roughly [SKLEE-eh] or [SKLEE-uh]
- The skl cluster is pronounced together: SKL-…
- Often two syllables in careful speech: skli-e.

Exact sounds depend on dialect, but those approximations will be understood.

Why is sandkasse written as one word and not sand kasse?

Norwegian, like German, usually writes compound nouns as one word:

sand + kasse → sandkasse (sandbox)
leke + plass → lekeplass (playground)
barne + hage → barnehage (kindergarten)

If you wrote sand kasse as two words, it would be interpreted as “sand, box” (two separate nouns) rather than the single concept sandbox.

So when two nouns together form one new idea, the rule is: write them as a single compound noun.

Could I say På lekeplassen har barna sandkasse og lang sklie without the articles?

No, not in normal, natural Norwegian.

Indefinite countable nouns (like sandkasse, sklie) almost always need an indefinite article the first time you introduce them:

barna har en sandkasse – the children have a sandbox
barna har en lang sklie – the children have a long slide

Leaving out the articles (sandkasse og lang sklie) sounds wrong here, unless you are speaking in very telegraphic style (like a note or a heading), which is not standard full-sentence Norwegian.